


—and it was done

by neoinean



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, BAMF Aragorn, Epic Friendship, Gen, Hurt Legolas, Pre-Lord of The Rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-19
Updated: 2008-10-19
Packaged: 2019-07-14 10:19:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16038452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neoinean/pseuds/neoinean
Summary: Detailing a simple rescue mission that, for once, goes off without a hitch.





	—and it was done

**Author's Note:**

> This story was originally written for the February 2008 Teitho Contest under a different pen name. It has since been revised.

_The Foothills of Carn Dûm_

The world was dark, and cold. This far to the north winter always lingered in the air. Far above the cracked and barren ground the stars hung frozen, their light half-hearted and dimmed, drawn close in like the blood in his veins, recoiling from the unending chill. 

Hours and miles and lifetimes ago, when the setting sun dropped the veil of night across Aragorn’s lonely departure, his fellow rangers had been huddled together, hunkered amidst their shared cloaks, pressed shoulder to shoulder for the warmth of it. Far too experienced to chance a fire, the light of which could be seen for miles around in these open, desolate lands, they settled in to await their chieftain’s eventual return, hot-blooded curses of his name the only comfort they could afford. The invectives followed in his wake, hushed and stinging like the first touch of hoarfrost, bitter and as brittle as the air that carried them. 

Aragorn smiled fondly at the memory. 

Or perhaps that was for his first glimpse of his quarry’s fire, dancing low on the horizon, bright as a lighthouse beacon. The sight was enough to flood warmth to his heart, his spirits, his determination. Everything that sat at the core of him, all that he kept close and guarded selfishly. Resolved, and feeling the faintest stirrings of something far too close to hope take root, Aragorn set forth anew, a blade loosed in the dark. 

One thousand yards. Sloping ever so gently downward; large swatches of stone exposed through frozen, peaty ground; flesh scraped over raw by harsh, relentless winds. Cloak pulled in tighter at the neck, hood drawn down over his forehead, hands fisted around the coarse, well-worn fabric. An awkward carriage that hobbled his gate, turning otherwise swift and effortless footfalls into staccato bursts that fell just short of silent, stealth sacrificed for warmth. The element of surprise he could cope without, if it came to that. Not so the use of his fingers, which needed to be whole and dexterous by the time he reached his destination.

Seven hundred yards. A shallow, yawning valley, full of withered rock formations jutting out above spindly thickets of heather and gorse and broom. Bones of the earth protruding through its broken skin, all cast in faded, flickering sunset tones from the distant firelight. The brambles caught and pulled, scratched and tore as he passed by, traitorously slowing his pace. It had been a great many years since he'd actually wished himself an elf, a child's folly long outgrown. He indulged it again, fleetingly, as the crunch of twigs underfoot echoed all too loudly in his ears. 

Four hundred yards. The lazily sloping hill a treacherous bed of loose gravel drenched in shadow. He scrambled, swift and agile, prowled right up to the crest of it, hands and knees and boot-tips, small clouds of dust billowing out behind him only to be swallowed by the gloom. He flexed his fingers, mindful of the grit caked into the lines of his palms and packed down beneath his fingernails. It would serve him, he decided. His hands needed to be strong and sure, and the chalk-like powder would help his grip.

One hundred yards. Down on his belly and slithering forward, all elbows and toes and shimmying hips; cloak abandoned out of necessity. Slow and steady he crept along, his vision half-masked by low shrub grass and sickly yellow flowers that stank of rot, their vibrant colors bleached like bone, the last evidence of a long-ago decay. It reminded him of the Morgul Vale, of the warped and twisted beauty of that land, of the cloying sweetness that dogged the air and all but hid the stench of death. Aragorn stoked the memory, unearthed it from where it had been buried deep, spit and polished until it shone brightly in his mind's eye. 

(We all have memories that linger, deep in the forgotten places. Clinging to the shadows of the mind, slipping through the cracks and hollows of the soul. They lie in wait; endlessly, effortlessly persistent; like blood stains, like scar tissue, known only by their shape, by the way they ache and pull beneath the skin long after the initial wound has scabbed, has faded, has been written over in fresher blood. They speak of pain and loss, of making and unmaking, of the razor’s edge between that which is too terrible to remember and that which is too perilous to forget. Aragorn has collected enough to know that sometimes, _sometimes_ , the memory is actually the lesser evil.) 

Why look back in anger, or in sorrow, or in regret, when even our most painful memories can be put to better use? 

*****

The fire he’d been stalking was indulgent, once he saw it up close, almost as though it’s owners didn't care to stay hidden. Or perhaps they thought that none would have been around to see it, anyway. Aragorn didn't give the matter much thought beyond taking the measure of the wind in its drifting smoke.

Or rather, in taking measure of the three hulking forms lounging fat and sated by its supple heat, not keeping watch. Not like that, with their backs to the world at large, the firelight destroying their night-vision. Aragorn might well have been invisible. 

...Unless of course they actually _were_ watching out, or trying to at least, and were simply -- _spectacularly_ \-- incompetent. That was an encouraging thought. 

Three by the fire, another two outside the door to the primitive stone hut, one walking a silent perimeter. Six in total, and Aragorn frowned. That couldn't be right. It would take more than six to subdue the Mirkwood Prince and his honor guard, more still to hold them captive for so long. Though, of course, this little band could once have numbered much higher, as the one long Elven dagger that they'd found had been mired in dried blood. (Dull, listless, brownish blood. _Mannish_ blood, but Aragorn could not -- _would_ not -- think on such things now.) How many had it taken, then, to finally bring Legolas down? Some distant part of him hoped it had been many.

Some not-so-distant parts, as well, but he refused to be distracted by them. 

(Idly he’d wondered, both then and now -- what had they done with their dead? He knew how much blood both man and elf could lose (and then and walk, or crawl, or be carried off afterwards) and yet live to tell the tale of it. He knew how thirsty the forest was, how large the original spills must have been before being reduced to the messy, congealing patches he’d found in the glade where he’d been expecting to find a clutch of irritated elves, all waiting on his own unfortunate delay. What did it mean, he’d wondered, that he’d found no cairns, no remnants of any sort of pyre, none of the expected refuse of a carrion feast -- and not a single trace of the Enemy? The questions persisted, even as he’d gathered the best of the closest of his rangers and set off in furious -- _furious_ \-- pursuit. Thranduil’s response, he knew, was surely just as swift, if sadly much too distant. Alas that by necessity this rescue fell on Dúnedain shoulders, and thence on his alone.)

For long hours Aragorn stalked the outskirts of their camp; drifted through their watch soft and swift, the shadow of a ghost. He studied them, learned their movements, mapped their routes, charted their rotations and routines. Timing was everything, and details were everything else. Legolas could endure -- would endure, silent and sullen and obstinate unto his last breath -- until Aragorn was certain. Until he knew, beyond all shadow of thought and doubt and fledgling hope, that his heart’s brother would not be doomed by his own hand, rushed into action premature. 

Thus Aragorn sat back and watched them, waited on them, studied them, achingly and unnaturally patient, wringing his hands as much to keep them warm as to alleviate his frustration and staunch the need to act, while the few spare corners of his mind that were not wholly devoted to the riddle that was his latest foes -- tormented him. What had these fiends done to his friend, he with his fiery spirit, his indomitable will? What would they have done to his guards, poor souls with precious little value as a hostage? What could they be doing even now inside that horrid little prison while salvation sat back on its heels, biding its time? Aragorn could only guess. And those guesses were not good company. 

His friend would not have cowed to them, would not have bent an inch in supplication. Not even to spare his own men. He would honor them, mourn them, _avenge_ them (hopefully; with Aragorn's help) but he would not barter them. No amount of pain and suffering, neither his nor that of others, would move Legolas Thranduilion to weaken his father’s already precarious hold on their corrupted woodland home. Aragorn knew this for truth -- knew of it first hand, a bone-deep and bloody sort of knowing -- and while he would have no better guide, not here in the cold and the dark and the insufferable waiting, both familiar and not, there was precious little comfort in that knowledge, hard won and even harder kept.

That he and Legolas had done this dance before was _sickening_ , and the fact that Aragorn was older now, wiser in the ways of war if nothing else, meant only that his confidence was greater, this time around. And that was hard-won, too. 

(Memories that lingered, each stain telling its own tale, each scar a dull, persistent ache that stretched and pulled beneath his skin, raw as a new wound. Each and every one held tightly like some precious, needful thing, kept close and guarded jealously.) 

This was not his first rescue mission, nor his second or his tenth. With experience as his sword and certainty his shield, Aragorn had this rescue mapped and mastered inside his head from the moment he and his rangers discovered just where it was his foes were taking their ill-gotten prey -- and what, exactly, that said about them, they whose only service to this world would be rendered through their leaving of it. 

And still, Aragorn waited; lurked like an ill-tempered vulture in the shadows beyond the fire’s reach until the inept watchers dozed off, one by one by one. Until the door-wardens sat back on their heels, leaned their backsides against the cold, unfeeling stone and let their minds and gazes wander. Until the single, solitary sentinel’s steps were shuffling, scraping, dragging with fatigue. He was one and they were six, and that was only if none were stationed inside the little stone hut, making time with their prisoners -- but Aragorn’s mind shied away from such thoughts each time they skated near. That sort of speculation would not help anyone, least of all himself. Not if he wished to come out the other side of this rescue in any kind of useful state.

Patience always was the cruelest of the virtues. 

*****

At last (at long, _long_ last!) he judged it time to act. Aragorn waited until the perimeter sentry had reached the farthest distance from the fire -- amateurish, he thought once more, to patrol such a wide space all alone -- and then he made his move. From whence he hid he darted out, fast and lethal, a viper in his strike. Half a heartbeat was all it took to wrap the man up from behind, one hand flying to the sentry's shoulder, the other to his chin. So close he smelled his victim's breath, carried on the startled, strangled gasp, then one strong yank—

**CRACK!**

—and it was done. The vertebrae snapped sharp and clean between his hands. A quick and bloodless way to kill a man, not unlike a hanging.

 _Cervical vertebrae_ , his mind supplied, the thought sliding in unbidden, swift and sudden as dagger through the ribs. There were seven of them, small and delicate, trailing down from the base of the skull, forming the top of the spine. _Atlas_ to _Axis_ to three, four, five, and six that Elrond named in Quenyan numerals -- _Quenyan for the cervicals, Estel, because they're high_ \-- and _what in the Void_ was the seventh one called? Damned if he could remember, now. Damned if he should waste time trying.

Aragorn dragged the body back; hid it behind an outcropping of rock after divesting it of a cutthroat dagger; a wicked, unclean blade of uncertain make. This, he slipped between his belt, already planning for its use. He flexed his fingers, shook his arms out to dispel the latent tension (so much adrenaline for so little effort) or perhaps to fling off the taint of death that soiled him like mud, but he gave his victim no further thought. Not in that moment, not when there was work still to be done.

(And this, _this_ was why his rangers were not with him, now. For all that he’d had need of them on the long and deadly road that led him here; for all that he will surely have need of them again when he finally put this accursed place behind him. They were his people, his household, his kin, and yet. They were rangers. Rangers were the wilds, were stealth and silence and stalking this world’s evils. Rangers were hunters, were soldiers and sentinels and the last, gasping defense of the north. They were swords and bows and the good hearts of men who’d sworn to live and die solely for the need of others. Rangers were not blades loosed in the dark. Rangers were not _this_.)

He slunk through the shadows again, crept all the way to the far side of the fire where he ducked down, out of sight, into a scraggly, scratchy little thicket. The fools had four horses split between the lot of them, all tacked up to a rickety hitching post, another curiosity he paid no passing heed. Rather he palmed his borrowed dagger in one hand while the other groped for a fist-sized stone.

It was time for a diversion.

The dagger flew with wicked aim and sliced straight through the hitching rope. The stone followed on its heels and pelted the nearest horse's flank. It reared back with a great cry only to find it had its head, and it danced in place for just a moment before bolting off into the night. The door-wardens cried out in alarm, rousing their companions by the fire, yet when one horse spooks the rest are sure to follow. Three more hasty rocks flung out over grimaced grey-tongued apologies ensured a small stampede. None of this nightmare was their fault, and he doubted they would long outlive their masters. Not in this wretched wasteland so steeped in the enemy’s fell presence. 

The three by the fire tore off after their ignoble steeds, barking orders and obscenities in their harsh, guttural speech. It was Westron, if you listened closely, if you filtered the sounds through the dialect of ancient, withered Angband -- but Aragorn did not listen at all, fought to keep his attention on the wardens by the door. It was Mannish speech, of a fashion, but these were not men to him, now. Damned by their own deeds, they were little better than orcs in his mind’s eye, and he would kill them without thought or hesitation or regret. 

( _Lie_. Orcs would have been better, he reckoned. Orcs were a ranger’s preferred foe; a band of those fell creatures would not have seen him out here alone. Orcs would have left no spaces between for unwanted thought. Orcs would have been a _challenge_.) 

The wardens were were alarmed by their horses’ flight, because of course they were, but too it seemed they did not question it. Aragorn read surprise and aggravation and dismay in their countenance, even at his humble distance, but precious little wariness. Fortuitous, even if it made him wonder anew how such arrogant, ill-trained, _amatuer_ foes had been so successful, thus far. Strength of numbers, it had to have been. There was simply no other explanation.

( _Lie_. But Aragorn could not afford to be haunted by the spectre of betrayal; not here and now, with him out alone and so very much at stake. Not when he was poised to kill any and all that stood between him and his heart’s brother. A knife loosed in the dark is singular of purpose, and it does not hesitate.) 

Aragorn waited as the dust settled, waited for his two remaining foes to come down from the excitement, to decide for themselves that the riddle of their horses spooking in the dark was not for them to solve, and to busy themselves anew with their watch at the door. He waited as they fidgeted, twitchy, uncertain in the insufferable dark, and spoke to each other in staccato bursts too low for Aragorn to hear. Doubtless they sensed danger lurking near, the base instinct that sets hairs on end and whispers to us that even the very darkness can have eyes and ears and ill intent -- and were trying to decide if the threat was real, or if it was simply their own minds playing tricks. 

For his part, Aragorn knew all too well what it was like to sit a lonely watch and take no comfort in the stars, as remote and indifferent as the Valar themselves. His gut churned at the thought, at the memories that thought invoked, something cold and gnawing that caught his gorge and held on tight, forced its way up and out until it broke into a sickly sort of grin, a cold, unfriendly little thing that gaped in his face like a wound with teeth. Those remote and indifferent stars, at least, made for fitting witnesses. 

He withdrew his own dagger from its sheath at his boot, took a moment to gauge his aim, to gird himself for all that was sure follow after. 

(It wasn't that he was afraid of missing, no. He knew he wouldn't miss, knew in the blackest reaches of his soul the price of owning such a certainty, but that was not a thought for now and so he shoved it back, shoved it down, way down deep into the cracks and shadows that kept all his other nameless things.) 

Sixty paces, give or take, between his foxhole and the door, and a light if steady crosswind. An endless breath and then he let the dagger fly, another knife loosed in the dark. 

He was off and running before it really left his hand.

His mark stumbled back into the door from the force of the dagger digging in, the dull thump of flesh impacting wood the only sound. Oh there might have been a whisper, some slight murmur of noise coughed out by the dying man before his own blood sealed off the vacuum of his lungs, but Aragorn heard naught. The dagger had bit in in just above the notch in that unsuspecting throat, right below the larynx, and severed the top of the trachea. Aragorn watched the blood gush around the blade, watched it vomit out that unsuspecting mouth and then dribble from that unsuspecting nose, frothy and pink and desperate for breath. He watched as his victim was reduced to choking gasps and gurgles, viscous bubbles popping over the wound. A brutal, ugly death, more asphyxiation than exsanguination.

(Old Stick-at-Naught Strider, they called him in Bree, derision overwhelming any lingering fear. A ranger, true, but a tame one, somehow. Better mannered than his kin; always paid his tab; never even seen him draw his sword. A ranger, sure, but a quiet one; a harmless one, mostly. Never even seen him lose his temper. Old Stick-at-Naught Strider, only dangerous if you’re standing downwind.)

Sixty paces. Strider crossed them before his victim failed to breathe his last.

Then, there was the other. The door warden’s partner. Aragorn ignored his panicked cries, his shouts for his companions. Instead he kept his eyes on how the warden moved, how he dropped to his knees without any grace to bend in desperation over his fallen comrade. He was young; untested, untried, untrained. He didn't even move to staunch the bleeding. Rather he grabbed his friend's shoulders and shook, words tumbling from him in a rush.

 _Amateurs_ , Aragorn thought again, the word half-formed on his lips, a hard and vicious snarl. Had he dared, he would have cursed these brigands in every tongue he knew for throwing _children_ into his path -- for how easily he could have chosen a different target! Left or right, a mental coin flip, and he'd have buried his knife hilt-deep in a throat that likely hadn't seen its first shave. 

(Not the youngest he’d have killed, no. That honor belonged to Dunland, to an arrow loosed after a horse-thief whose face he hadn’t seen until the life was leaving it. That boy had spat at him with his last breath while he’d stood mute, paralyzed in horrified dismay. The riders he’d been with said that was often the way of it, that Dunland would send the smallest, the quickest, the lightest, the best to manage their escape. Aragorn had retched into the tall grass and vowed he’d never make such a mistake again.)

But a curse would have given warning.

Aragorn was on him in an instant, pressed up against the young warden's back, and then it was ankles and hips and balance and leverage and—

"Hold," he ordered low and cold, the sinister tickle in that boy's ear. 

The body in his arms froze so tense it thrummed, little quivers of fear that Aragorn felt clawing deep into his own skin. His right hand a fist, the tendons of his forearm coiling rock-hard, no give to his flesh as he pulled tight in against that poor boy's throat and barely left him room enough to breathe.

"P-please don't kill me." A raspy sort of squeak was all that he could manage, for Aragorn had him well and truly pinned; he couldn't turn, couldn't move without pressing himself harder into that unforgiving choke-hold. But he could still beg for his life in a voice hadn't settled yet, foul cadences of Angmar bedamned.

"The key," Aragorn demanded around the unkind flexing of his arm, "or this lock will be the last thing you ever see." And there was murder in his voice, he knew, because he knew exactly what it had cost him to put it there. 

(Once, he'd known just how much of that was lies and how much of it was truth, but then he'd also known that he'd never do anything to break Lord Elrond's heart and that he simply wasn't capable of killing in cold blood. Now all he knew was that Legolas could very well be dead or dying behind that door, and that "never" was just a more polite way of saying "until.")

The warden believed him of course, just as Aragorn had planned. He fumbled awkwardly at his belt, not enough fingers and too many thumbs, and all the while Aragorn could hear his choked off little gasps, thin panting breaths that heaved over the rough edges of undiluted panic, the kind that dulled both hands and wits alike when one could ill afford the loss of either. His victim was likely seeing stars by now, vision greying in and starting to warp into that long, twisted tunnel of suffocation while that too-young heart pounded fierce and urgent beneath his arm, the one wound down tight across that too-young ribcage, holding him in place -- and the part of Aragorn’s mind that wasn’t faithfully keeping time was busily hurling all kinds of curses: at the Enemy, at these few piss-poor recruits who like as not had no choice in their servitude, at every last ill turn that led them each unto this point, that led him here to hold a mere slip of boy in such a cruel embrace. Already his pocked skin was flushed hot and red and ruddy from the lack of air, and fat tears splashed down to sear the flesh of Aragorn's hand where it's flexed up back against one puffy cheek as he struggled at his belt, frantic and yet with ever-waning strength, half choked to death already.

 _Underdeveloped lungs_ , Aragorn realized, his healer's mind rearing up to aid him once again. _A child’s lungs, not yet grown to fit the rest of him_. This boy was even younger than he’d first thought, but before Aragorn could even begin to process that realization the keys were free, held aloft in one trembling, triumphant hand. And it was _obscene_ , the way the boy’s belt had come undone in the effort, the way the heavy leather pulled his ratty woolen trousers into an indecent heap around his ankles while something appallingly close to hope shone through his bloodshot eyes -- and forget the other side of the door! That right there was enough to haunt Aragorn's nightmares from now into the next forever, because apparently the boy retained innocence enough to take him at his word -- the keys in exchange for his own life -- and that was the most obscene of all.

(Oh, he’d always planned to kill the second warden, to take advantage of his inevitable surprise and horror at seeing his friend cut down, strike a quick and fatal blow. If luck was with him he could have caught the man -- if _man_ he truly had been -- completely unaware, and there would have been little trick involved in ending him. In truth, that boy's death had been ordained from the moment Aragorn arrived.)

It was the shock of it, the slide of bile that rose in his throat with those black thoughts that loosened his grip on the boy, just a bit, just enough to give him one good breath, and— 

"P-p-please," and it's stuttering and fast, like the pulse scudding wild behind his arm -- _external carotid artery_ , his mind supplied unbidden -- and then the memories hit him _hard_ , full-on immersive, like the world's imploding all around him while he's stuck fast, pinned down at the center of it. Suddenly he was _there_ again, wrenched back down deep into that place in his mind he flat out doesn't allow himself to _go_ anymore; suddenly there are arms and feet and hands and heat and _he's_ the one that's begging. And Aragorn _stopped_ , totally, completely: stopped moving, stopped thinking, stopped breathing while the whole world suddenly came up for air. Then he was jumping back, a jerky, flailing motion, reflex for how the weight of that boy in his arms was scalding him from the inside out.

The warden dropped bonelessly. Even if he'd managed to hold his footing when Aragorn shoved off, the sharp and sudden spike of air that hit his lungs as soon as the pressure was released would have knocked his knees out anyway. Down on all fours then rocking down to his heels and pressing his face into the dirt, the warden gulped down mouthful after mouthful of precious air. He'd make himself sick that way, Aragorn knew -- and that was his brain, jump-starting. Suddenly words to _slow down_ , to relax, to _breathe_ were leaping to the tip of his tongue of their own accord. Aragorn ruthlessly aborted them, shoved the worst curse that came to mind past his lips instead, the sound harsh and dissonant when it struck the air because it'd sat all wrong in his mouth and found his ears no different.

Just as his hand twitched as it dropped, hard and sure and half of its own will, down onto that boy's shoulder, so painfully thin. His fingers flexed once, reflexively, an apology he could not help, and then his hand was sliding upwards, settling on the back of the boy’s neck ( _vertebra prominens_ , the seventh cervical vertebra, he remembered now), a comfort and an anchor. ( _The hands of a—_ )

Tight-fisted grip, and a hard shove up from the balls of his feet. The warden's head bashed into the door, a sharp and hollow crack, and he sprawled -- unconscious -- at Aragorn's feet. 

Aragorn dropped with him, groped for a pulse with unsteady fingers, found it satisfactorily strong if also a bit fast for his liking. Too, those seven lovely vertebrae were still aligned, and Aragorn guided them gently as he rolled the boy onto his side, made sure that abused throat was not obstructing his airway, that it would not swell up in future to achieve the same result. 

If he hadn't the stomach to kill the boy outright then he would also not suffer him to expire through careless inattention.

(True, he had planned for this boy's death, and in the end, death might have been the kinder choice, because -- what future did this boy have, sworn so young into the Enemy’s service? And if not kinder, then surely it would have been wiser, leaving no witnesses behind to give chase later, mayhap with reinforcements. But plans rarely survived first contact with the enemy, and indeed, Aragorn knew that he would fail in this from the moment he wrapped that boy up in his arms and delayed his choice with harsh command. And -- what did it say about him, then, that he was entirely unsure of whether or not he should regret it?) 

(Unkind, unwise, and unashamed -- behold Isildur’s heir! His sins may be legion, but at least he came by them honestly.)

Satisfied his enemy was not in immediate danger, Aragorn turned his attentions to the greasy mop of that boy's hair, and the lovely goose-egg that rose in accordance to his actions. He found no broken skin and no give where there shouldn't be, and took a moment to be grateful for both. The boy should wake soonish with a ripe concussion ( _grade three; tisane of red grape juice, add the distilled barks of white willow and cinchona, mix in fine-crushed chamomile and meadowsweet_ ). The healer in him thusly sated, Aragorn spared the boy no more thought as he grabbed the discarded keyring and applied it to the lock at last.

*****

The hut was small and square, dirt floor and kindling roof, no windows and one door. And indeed, Legolas was held within, huddled in an inelegant heap and chained to the far wall, a tangled mess of awkward angles that spoke to broken bones. 

Aragorn absorbed the sight, his mind taking everything in with one long roving glance while his gut absorbed the stone that hit him hard and sank there, because Legolas was all alone, no sign or trace of his missing retinue, a fact that raised more questions than it answered. And for his part, his heart’s brother appeared in better shape than he had feared and yet still worse off than he had prayed, and just as Aragorn had steeled himself to take those last few steps—

Legolas stopped playing possum. 

He tipped his head up, dark-matted hair falling in ratty curtain that absolutely failed to hide the savage bruising that mottled the left side of his face. Eyes far too wide and fever-bright, he flashed a cracked and bloody grin, but there were no traces of hysteria in the staccato laugh that rattled ominously in his chest.

" _Le ab-dollen_ ," he drawled, the words blunted by an obviously broken nose. And then he passed right back out again.

Aragorn cursed, and his long legs ate the distance between them almost instantly. Then he was on his knees, one hand landing squarely upon that fevered brow while the other measured the force of each raspy, panting breath before timing the faint little dips and trips of Legolas's pulse. That done, he sat back on his heels, stunned momentarily to base inaction.

Legolas, alive and spirit-whole after ten long nights' captivity. Aragorn could have wept.

Legolas, bound by heavy iron in a four-point hold, wallowing alone in the mire of his own blood. Oh, Aragorn could have wept, indeed. But tears would be of no use to anyone.

Instead he took up the key again, and one-two-three-four the manacles fell away with rusty clanks, revealing the raw and blistered flesh beneath. ( _Poultice of comfrey and mint; add athelas if the infection worsens._ ) He carded delicate fingers through Legolas's hair, caught them in the rats' nests there, and found a closed laceration behind one pointed ear. Mercifully though he found no give where there shouldn't be, and the blood had dried completely.

Legolas moaned softly, likely stirring from the pain. Aragorn did not have time to be gentle.

"Come on, back with me now," he urged, needing Legolas to open his eyes even as he busied himself with the prince's arms, probing for injury.

Legolas blinked, his moan falling to a groan, his eyes barely tracking in the dim light. ( _Concussion, grade two or three; tisane of_ —) 

"Ar’gorn?"

"We must hurry," he insisted as his fingers began taking a headcount of elven ribs. "We haven't much time."

"Guards?"

"Will be here shortly."

Before Legolas could reply he was forced to stifle a gasp, flinching sharply away ( _right fourth rib cracked_ ).

"Any difficulties breathing? Be truthful now!"

The glare Legolas fixed on him was singularly not amused, but Aragorn was in no position to notice it. His own eyes were still firmly fixed on the mess that was the prince’s chest.

"Well, in case you hadn't noticed—" Legolas broke off around a throttled cry ( _left fifth and sixth are broken, thankfully without displacement_ —) as his body arched away from the pain. Aragorn balled his hands to fists, kept himself from reaching out, and forced himself to wait. "I don't breathe so well with someone pressing down on the ruination of my ribcage," he groused at last, and in a voice far too strong to have come from injured lungs.

Grateful for small mercies, Aragorn ignored the sarcasm because it allowed him to ignore everything Legolas was hiding beneath it. Instead he peeled aside the tattered bottom of Legolas's tunic ( _moderate abdominal bruising_ —) and slipped his hands over the abused flesh with gentle pressure. Legolas squirmed around a sharp inhale— ( _no major internal injuries, though mild ones may_ —)

"Ai! Quit it!" (— _yet present themselves_.) And he batted those hands away. "Aragorn, we don't have time for this."

Legolas was most likely right, but Aragorn wasn't about to move his friend without being absolutely certain no greater ill could come of it. His seeking fingers continued on, tracing the outline of hip and thigh, praising all the Valar he could name for Legolas's exasperated sigh and for every single intact seam.

"Are you quite through?" he snapped, impatient, and Aragorn knew exactly why, and didn't begrudge him for it. "I should like to make my escape sometime in this age."

"Almost," Aragorn answered, half distracted. ( _Simple left tib-fib fracture, will need to be set and splinted_.)

"We must leave! Help me to stand." ( _Right ankle definitely sprained, possibly broken. Should be immobilized and elevated_.)

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that," Aragorn muttered as he sat back on his heels once more. His eyes roved over Legolas's chest again, factoring in the locations and severity of those three busted ribs and trying to plot a way around them so that he could carry his friend to safety without dealing him more serious harm. The last thing they needed was to jostle a bone shard straight through an already weakened lung (because the wet rasp that Legolas was fervently hoping he hadn't heard signaled the onset of pneumonia, Aragorn was sure; not even elves were immune to the prolonged effects of broken ribs and damp conditions).

"Brace your hands on my shoulders," he directed, scooting forward once more. "I'll haul you up." 

He caught the prince's understanding nod, but then he was turning around, giving Legolas his back as he rocked forward into a crouch. His knees were less than enamored with that position, but then there was nothing else for it.

A moment later he felt what must have been elven fingertips brushing his hair out of the way -- so some of it had fallen from its queue then; no matter, but considerate of Legolas all the same. Then two vices gripped his shoulders with bruising strength, but rather than focus on it he pitched forward, bracing his own hands on the ground before him and then pushing off to shove himself to standing. He heard Legolas gasp behind him -- probably from trying to balance his ascent on that injured ankle -- and he took advantage of his friend's momentary distraction to reach back and chop the backs of his knees with both hands. Legolas stumbled at bit, just enough for Aragorn to catch him at the backs of his thighs -- and all of a sudden the prince was riding piggyback.

And he did not care for it _at all_.

"Hey! Hey -- no! No, put me down! Aragorn—!" and he writhed and twisted as much as his injuries would allow, upsetting Aragorn's admittedly precarious balance. Aragorn stumbled, and he knew it was bad form, but then he also knew that Legolas's pride was threatening to cost them their already narrow window of opportunity, so he let his knees give out, which let Legolas pull them over backwards. There was a sharp cry and a muffled thud and then Aragorn was rolling, pitching his body into the dirt to neatly avoid crushing Legolas beneath him. 

A heartbeat later he was up and turning, diving forward to where Legolas lay dazed, half-sprawled on his backside, and Aragorn knew it was cruel, but then he also knew that Legolas would have taken that fall on his bony behind, jarred but uninjured from the jostling, and he pressed his advantage over an elf that was in no position to resist him. One callused hand came up to clamp down over Legolas's mouth, the soft webbing between finger and thumb wedging right up beneath the prince's nostrils, pinching them closed. That last was reflexive, sense-memory, though hardly necessary given the broken nose, and he watched in satisfaction as Legolas's eyes flew wide, one hand flying up to grab hold of the wrist attached to the hand now abjectly suffocating him.

And yet those eyes, bright with fever, clouded with pain, now swimming from lack of air, reflected nothing but confusion. There was not a scrap of fear to be found in their unfathomable depths, and Aragorn's heart gave a painful double thump at the sheer amount of trust Legolas had in him, even now. It made his voice rough -- with apology, with humility, with shame -- but the reasons mattered little towards the affect of the tone.

" _Listen!_ I'll forgive this stupidity because between the fever and that knock to the head you're obviously not thinking clearly, but with your myriad injuries and the wet lung you've developed -- _please_ , your pretending only insults us both. Now, you seem to be wholly unaware that you don't have a leg to stand on. Therefore you will consent to being carried, and preferably _before_ your thrice-damned elven pride gets us both killed. Do you understand me?"

There was no kindness, no friendship in Aragorn's voice, but then he had been counted a leader of men in three countries. He could give orders to perfect strangers with no question as to whether or not they'd be obeyed. Stunned, Legolas could only nod.

Aragorn was glad of that, because he knew with each fractured beating of his heart just how closely he courted danger here, knew that unlike the boy outside his best friend’s lungs were already compromised -- and worse, he trusted that Aragorn would never harm him. Hence it was entirely possibility that the elven prince might have tried, however foolishly, to out-stubborn him in this, and Aragorn had dreaded the thought, no matter that he’d already planned his way around it.

He should have had more faith. Or a least, not been so quick to dismiss the depth of Legolas’s own. Aragorn gratefully released his hold, but time was short and he allowed his friend only the briefest of moments to collect himself before insisting that they try again.

This time when he stood up Legolas held fast, and he clung like a limpet to Aragorn's back as he staggered out of the hut. They’d barely crossed the threshold though when hoofbeats sounded in the distance, and Aragorn picked up his pace from a stagger to a jog. They disappeared into the darkness just as the three mounted guards rode in from the darkness, their fourth horse in tow. A distraught wail split the night and Aragorn found himself hoping that it was born of grief at the loss of their comrades and not anger at the loss of their prize.

"Divide and conquer," Legolas slurred into his ear. Hardly surprising that he deduced how Aragorn could have bested six men all on his own. "Or at least, divide and outwit." A chuckle dropped into a sleepy sigh. "Brilliant."

Aragorn didn't reply, focused instead on repeatedly getting one foot in front of the other, and on the hot puffs of air that warmed his neck at increasingly irregular intervals.

Nine hundred yards. Stomping hastily through the underbrush, feeling it claw mercilessly at his ankles. He paid the scratches no mind even though he knew full well that they should be tended later, for this land fell within Angmar's shadow and even the tiniest flower still felt it's evil -- to say nothing of the thorns. Aragorn hoped fervently, if perhaps a bit foolishly, that this was mere coincidence, that those brigands simply chose the most desolate location they could find to hide out in whilst knowing nothing of its history -- which wouldn't exactly be a stretch, considering they knew nothing of neither woodsmanship nor vigilance. Unfortunately, he also knew that Legolas had led Mirkwood's charge against the traitorous forces of Rhudaur, and that coincidences like that simply didn't exist in Middle-earth.

Six hundred yards. His knees hated him probably as much as Legolas' ribs. He'd lost count of how many times he'd nearly lost his balance, nearly gone tumbling head over heels over unconscious elf down the gravelly little gullies that lay between him and his rangers. But he didn't dare stop to rest, not even to secure his bearings. Pursuit was as unlikely as the erstwhile guards picking up his trail and tracking it through the dark, but then pursuit would be mounted while he was not, and Aragorn most surely knew that he would not have survived nearly this long by taking foolish chances.

Three hundred yards. Every muscle burning from exertion. If Legolas was conscious, if he wasn't concussed to oblivion, he might have been able to spot their base camp, but alas Aragorn was forced to rely on his own instincts and sense memory -- not to mention good old-fashioned luck -- to backtrack his route. (Luck though, he knew, was too fickle a mistress by far. Better to rely on skill, and skill Aragorn had in plenty. Too bad he knew that one day, inevitably, it would not be enough. It never was, but such was the fate of all mortals. Idly he wondered if Legolas would be there when that day came for him. Part of him selfishly hoped it would be so.)

He felt his rangers before he saw them, swarming out of the darkness to surround his position, verifying that it really was their chieftain returning to them. Legolas didn't stir when he (ever so gently) dropped him to the cold, cold ground. He set one ranger to remove the saddle from his horse, commanded another to bring forth his healer's bag, ordered none of them to bother with a fire. Then Halbarad was at his side, and Aragorn at last reclaimed his sword. He hadn't brought it with him on his little rescue mission; swords were in no way conducive to the stealth-work he’d set out to do. You couldn't get the drop on someone with a sword, or rather you _could_ , but with the sword you were committed, your movements held back and restricted to all points behind the blade. No, swords were for the battlefield, for open combat. There had been nothing open about what he'd done tonight. Not much of combat, either.

Aragorn set his sword aside, his hands absently half-sheathing it. It was habit to inspect the blade, especially near where it joined the guard, and habit again to lock the sheath down with the strap over the hilt, declaring the blade at rest. His earliest lessons in swordplay, back when it had been a ritual he hadn't fully understood, only one step in the long line of learning how to handle the weapon properly. Yet even as his hands set themselves in the familiar motions his mind was firmly fixed on other matters, namely the wreck of Legolas's leg. He needed a full splint; what he had was a straight edge and bandages.

"Hold him," he directed, but Halbarad knew his station all too well. He laid one hand on Legolas's shoulder and then the other crossways at his hip, and nodded his readiness back to his chieftain.

Aragorn flexed his fingers, a deliberate gesture not born of nerves. Half a heartbeat was all it took as he grabbed hold of Legolas's left shin, one hand just below the knee, the other above the ankle. He wrapped those fingers around the limb, tight enough to feel the grating edges of broken bone, loose enough to not cause further injury with his own hands, then one strong yank—

**CRACK!**

—and it was done. The bones snapped quick and clean between his hands, and the line of Legolas's leg was whole once more.

Aragorn immobilized the limb with his sword bound with strips of bandage cloth. Then he renewed his survey of Legolas's ribcage, found its layout worryingly different than last he'd checked, and cursed that he hadn't the time to bind it before now. This was done with alacrity, but not before he indulged himself in one ear pressed to Legolas's chest, and then again over his back. Pneumonia, sure as sunrise, but thankfully no punctured lung. Pulse was weak, but holding steady.

There was naught else he could do out here, not where a fire could be seen for miles around, and so Aragorn ordered his rangers to break camp. He vaulted up onto his mare's back and had Legolas passed up to him. It took a moment to arrange him properly so that his leg could hang unhindered and Aragorn could hold on without further impeding Legolas's breathing, but then they were away again, his rangers riding close on his heels.

It was a long, hard road to Rivendell. Necessity bade they take it in stages, and so Aragorn ordered a halt after one full hour of frantic speeds. Now was time for the fire, to set water to boil, to brew the draughts and the tisanes that he would force Legolas to drink. He never carried enough with him, no. Not nearly enough, but he had the athelas and the willow bark and the chamomile, and there was time to look at Legolas's ankle, and to clean the cuts and scrapes he'd found. They would make do, for a few hours at least, for however long it took for the first treatments to take hold.

Legolas stirred again, after the worst of it had passed. After Aragorn had tended to his hurts, had plied Legolas with as much tea as he could reflexively swallow, had slapped as hard as he dared on Legolas's back to dislodge the fluid built up in his lungs. A faint hum of discomfort rose in him, through the fever that despite their efforts was putting down deeper roots, through the confusion that the concussion left, through the pain that his injuries had wrought. Aragorn paused in swabbing the abrasion on Legolas's right wrist (and _oh_ , he really oughtn't feel such satisfaction at what he'd done to the men that so abused his dearest friend, but here and now in the broken and bloody aftermath his conscience was all too quiet) to let one unclean hand fall soft and cool upon that fevered brow, stroking gently until Legolas stilled beneath his touch.

"Knew you..." breathed out on breathless sigh, and that could have been _knew you'd come for me_ or _knew you'd save me_ or _knew you'd never stop looking_ , for any and all were true (and " _hush, hush mellonin. Just rest_ ") and Legolas was asleep once more.

Aragorn pulled away, flexed his fingers in nervous reflex. He stared down at hands, examined the dirt-packed lines of his palms, felt the phantom heat of an elven fever. Remembered the snap of bone, the slick of blood, the weight of a dagger in his grasp. Idly he wondered if Legolas had wondered why he alone had been taken alive -- and then worried at the thought. 

Bereft, he looked down at his heart’s brother, oddly able to snatch a moment's peace despite his injuries, despite whatever horrors he'd endured during his brief yet eternal captivity, for the simple fact that someone he knew, someone he trusted beyond any sane reckoning was there to keep the watch -- well. That was Legolas for you. His faith, his trust, his loyalty were staggering even at the best of times, and the worse things got, the more his spirit burned with them. Aragorn knew that there was precious little that Legolas would not do for him, knew enough to read that as fact instead of sentiment. Legolas believed in Aragorn, believed in him even when Aragorn did not believe in himself -- _especially_ when Aragorn did not believe in himself. Believed in hope and promise and goodness and integrity and—

It was well and truly terrifying, just how easy it would be to drown in the unfathomable depths of another's regard. Though for his part, Aragorn took great pains never to air such thoughts in the light of day, lest Legolas catch wind of them.

And all the while Legolas slumbered on, the horrors of these last ten day fallen away at last, routed by a heavy, healing sleep. Aragorn rather envied him that, perverse as that thought was.

He would grant his friend another hour, before seeing them on their way. 

- _fin_ -

**Author's Note:**

>  **Translations:**  
>  Le ab-dollen: you are late  
> Mellonin: my friend


End file.
